


Drain the cup dry

by Builder



Series: Missing Moments [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes & Shuri Friendship, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Post CA:CW, Scientist Shuri (Marvel), Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 02:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18306359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder
Summary: “And you’re too weak to do anything.”  The girl flattens one palm against Bucky’s chest to keep him from pitching forward.  “Besides, I trust you not to try.”“You shouldn’t.”“You’re not a weapon.”  She looks at him long and hard.  “Just a man.  And a broken one at that.”





	Drain the cup dry

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @builder051

There’s no sense of time in the cryosleep.  Bucky may have been gone ten minutes or ten years.  With HYDRA, it’s been both.  As his eyelids begin to flutter, he begins to wonder what it’ll be this time.  What he’ll be sent to do, who he’ll be sent to kill.  It makes him feel sick. **  
**

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them as he starts to gag.  It must be a new variation of the solution they pump into him to protect his organs.  All he’s bringing up is bile, though.  No slimy fluid, no flecks of blood.

A hand holds a towel to Bucky’s lips.  His metal arm is gone, and his flesh arm is restrained.  It’s not him.  Not a HYDRA agent, either.  

“Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky hasn’t heard that name in… he isn’t sure how long.  The shock of it catches him off guard, and it isn’t until it’s repeated that he hears the accent, the youth, the femininity.  

“Sergeant Barnes?  James?”

Her face swims out of the blur first, then her neat white lab coat and acid wash jeans.  “My apologies,” the girl says.  “I have tea to hydrate you and settle your stomach.”  She nods to a chrome cart topped with a sleek modern kettle and mugs.

“…what?”  Bucky croaks, coughing into his shoulder.  His head swims with the slight movement, and the girl’s visage clouds over again.

“Do you know where you are?”  She pours the tea, then reaches for the straps tethering Bucky to the machinery.

Bucky pauses, thinking.  That’s part of the problem, though.  He usually can’t think.  They usually wipe him before they put him away.  “Steve…” he says slowly.  Then again, as a question.  “Steve?”

“Yes, he was here,” the girl reassures.  She undoes the top buckle of the restraint, then swoops in with the towel when Bucky vomits again.  “You’re used to being unwell when you wake, aren’t you?”

“Um.”  She’s right.  Bucky is.  But that’s beside the point.  Steve isn’t here.  This girl is alone with him.  He doesn’t know how much time is passed, but he’s sure it isn’t enough.  “You can’t…  I can’t…”  Bucky squirms away from her gentle touch, dipping his chin and cramming his body into the furthest corner of the cryotube.  

“You’re safe,” the girl says.  “Trust me.”  She carefully folds the towel and puts her hand on Bucky’s shoulder, the mangled metal one.  She looks him directly in the eyes.  Somehow, she’s not frightened.

“But…” Bucky protests weakly.  “You’re not.  I can…  I have…”  He jerks his free shoulder up toward his head, sending painful aftershocks through his tender body.  “I can hurt you.”

“You can’t,” the girl says shortly.  She gives him a gentle pat, then goes back to unbuckling the restraints.  “These are interwoven with vibranium fibers.”

“But you’re–”  Bucky starts to protest.  Dizziness overcomes him as the strap around his waist falls away.

“And you’re too weak to do anything.”  The girl flattens one palm against Bucky’s chest to keep him from pitching forward.  “Besides, I trust you not to try.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“You’re not a weapon.”  She looks at him long and hard.  “Just a man.  And a broken one at that.”

“It doesn’t take much to turn me back into one,” Bucky says.  He needs to get his point across, and quickly.  This girl might not know the sequence of trigger words, but someone else could, someone with an ear pressed against the wall in the next room, someone concealed in the air vent in the ceiling…  Spies can hide in all sorts of places.  Bucky knows.  He’s hidden in all sorts of places.

“I know.”  The girl moves her head slightly, and Bucky sees the images dancing on the holographic screen behind her.  The red notebook, the aged paper within displayed in perfect replica with the trigger words blacked out.  “There are ways to remove them.”

Bucky’s first instinct is to be skeptical.  He’s been stuck with the sequence for the better part of a century, controlled by it.  Steve couldn’t fix him, as much as he’d tried.  And this girl is, what, sixteen?  He knows not to judge her.  He wants to trust her.  He just can’t.  Not yet.

“It’s not impossible,” the girl says.  “Challenging, but I believe I can do it.  There are therapeutic medications, methods of distracting you, mapping your eye movements.  It’s all experimental at this point, but very promising.”  She smiles.  “You’re not the only one with traumatic memories, Sergeant Barnes.”

Bucky scoffs.  “Traumatic memories I don’t even remember.”

The girl laughs, though she tries to stop herself.

“Bucky,” he says slowly.  “You can call me Bucky.”

“Shuri,” the girl replies.  She finishes freeing Bucky from the restraints, then holds out her hand.  Bucky takes it tentatively, afraid of exerting pressure on her delicate bones.

“Work with me?” Shuri asks.

Bucky bites his lip, then slowly nods.  “Ok.  But–If I hurt you–”

“You won’t,” Shuri says firmly.  “Now.  Tea?”  


End file.
